I just found this nifty little widget. Given all the things that can go wrong with tunneling, I’ll feel a lot better once all these machines punch through to the other side. That’s not to say tunneling is never worthwhile or that it’s even likely that something will go wrong. It’s just one of the […]

There was some good discussion generated from the summing up of my reading of the land use code at Crosscut. One thing I learned from reading the code is that we should take the simple rules of supply and demand seriously and apply them when land use decisions get made. When it comes to land use and […]

Sound Transit’s quarterly ridership report is out, now with 300% more color. Total system ridership was up 10% year on year. ST Express (led by explosive growth in Snohomish County) and Central Link were right about there; Tacoma Link was up 16%, and Sounder was flat. Over the same period, CT was down 3%, PT […]

With the big boom in South Lake Union, I’ve heard mutterings about transit service in the neighborhood, particularly from employees asking if there’s a more direct bus route up into SLU. Since many of the north-south routes that serve downtown terminate somewhere around the northern edge of the ride-free area, riders coming from points south […]

[Clarification: “Driving buses around almost-unused streetcar turnback loops” is an example of institutional inertia rather than political interference by the council. The canonical recent example of council interference is the continuation of Route 42 after Central Link entered service and Metro staff proposed its abolition.] Ever wonder why I write so much about reliability, simplicity and […]

The Burien Transit Center, once equipped with a mere 385 spaces, is now up to 505, thanks to Sound Transit 2 and the Federal Transit Administration. Drivers have been enjoying these spaces since Saturday. The best news is that the $20.5m new garage means that part of the old footprint will be available for TOD, […]

Several months ago I obtained travel time data for the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) which Metro used for performance analysis of the tunnel. With the elimination of the ride free area (RFA), a key component of the bi-partisan compromise to pass the $20 dollar CRC, this information is now much more relevant. The […]

One important usability enhancement for transit services is branding. Indeed, a difficult-to-quantify benefit of rail is that it immediately communicates to the average North American frequent, limited-stop, all-day service, and dedicated right of way*. Conversely, buses mean indeterminate service hours, frequency, and operation in traffic. For all the differentiation that one can achieve between buses, […]

Update 5:02 – An update from Mike Seely’s piece. “Smith called back to say he regrets the KKK analogy. He feels, in retrospect, that it was over-the-top and obscures some of his more substantive points. “It’s the thinking about special treatment and blaming others that’s the issue. The violence is simply beyond comparison,” he says.” […]

One mitigation measure suggested in Metro’s No Ride Free Simulation Study is “implementing ticket machines and/or ORCA readers at high boarding locations along Second, Third and Fourth Avenues.” The goal is to have passengers pay before they board the bus like on Link light rail or Swift BRT. When combined with a proof-of-payment (POP) system, […]

Yesterday Metro had a surprise event to award Federico “Fred” Banzuela the title of driver of the year (2010). Congrats Fred! Metro’s press release below. A U.S. Army veteran with a long history of service to his country and his county was chosen today as the King County Metro Transit Operator of the Year for […]

Tacoma Tomorrow argues convincingly that Pierce Transit should shrink its service area to exclude voters that won’t vote to preserve service. Against bike helmet laws. South Lake Union blowing up like Pootie Tang. SR 520 tolling now to begin in December. I assume they mean 2011. Kathy Lambert explains her vote for the $20 license […]

Some of you may find this trivial, but nomenclature can often play a big role in defining how a transit system is marketed and ultimately how it’s communicated to its customers. Take our transit center, for example– loosely defined as a hub where connecting services converge upon each other to serve one geographic concentration. Yet, […]

On May 31st the County Council adopted the fall service changes which we’ll see shortly. Included at the end of the press release was a handy summary of the service changes, detailing the change in service hours and how it relates to other changes. The largest changes are coming to the Eastside with the launch […]

In a recent post, Martin made the case — based on his own experience, and the 2009 route-level data — for abolishing the underperforming and almost entirely redundant Route 42. I think that post and the subsequent discussion demolished any reasonable argument in favor of the 42 based on mobility (“mobility” meaning the idea that transit agencies […]

Now that I’ve beaten to death Seattle’s options for its three high capacity transit corridors (plus two in the center city), it’s time to look at what the other 12 corridors might look like in the Transit Master Plan. SDOT and Nelson/Nygaard have not completed the plan, but they did brief the City Council on […]

by ANN DASCH Many companies practice price discrimination, charging different customers different prices for the same good or service to maximize revenue. Think of coupons, matinee movies, senior or bulk discounts. The Washington State Ferry System practices price discrimination. For instance, they charge senior passengers half the adult fare, and raise most vehicle fares in […]

Community Transit is set to adopt its February 2012 service cut plan on September 1st. There were three original alternatives on how to cut 20% of the system. Based on public comment, they created a hybrid alternative, which has no Sunday service. Like alternative III, it aggressively restructures local service with emphasis on high-demand corridors […]